Harvey Norman will not renew its sponsorship with Rugby Australia next year, following the ousting of chairman Hamish McLennan.
In a major blow for RA ahead of next year’s Super Rugby season, Harvey Norman is set to end its three-year association with the competition.
Harvey Norman has ended its partnership with rugby.Credit: Getty
Harvey Norman has been RA’s naming rights sponsor for Super Rugby since 2021.
Chairperson Gerry Harvey said the company was pursuing other sponsorship opportunities in other sports.
“What we do is, we do whatever sport for a while, we don’t necessarily hang on to it forever,” Harvey said.
“So we move around on different sports so we’re very heavy into sport advertising that we don’t necessarily say with the one sport forever.
“You know we think ‘oh we’ve given that a good go, then we’ll go on to the next one’. In all cases we stop at some stage.”
When asked was the dropping of the sponsorship anything to do with McLennan’s axing, Harvey said that was not the case.
“No, no, no, no,” Harvey said.
“It’s just the sport itself. So we do that for a while then move on to the next one.
And you know, at some stage like we’re doing basketball at the moment, we’ve never done that before. At some stage we’ll drop off that and go back and do something else.”
RA has been contacted for comment.
“The Harvey Norman contract with Rugby Australia expires at the end of December, the decision has been taken not to renew,” a Harvey Norman company spokesperson said.
More to come
